


The Ins and Outs of Family

by Starjargon



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020 Crossover Series- Meet all the People! [8]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Leverage, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Episode Related, Family, Family Secrets, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Kid Fic, Parent Bucky Barnes, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protect Eliot Spencer at all Costs, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starjargon/pseuds/Starjargon
Summary: Bucky finds his family again. Or rather, they find him. And they're not letting him go this time.Bucky Barnes Bingo B1: Labyrinth
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Eliot Spencer (Leverage), James "Bucky" Barnes & Rebecca Barnes Proctor, James "Bucky" Barnes & Winifred Barnes
Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020 Crossover Series- Meet all the People! [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060016
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	1. Full of Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> This one got a bit away from me. But I wanted to work in a line from S01E04: The Miracle Job into this universe somehow, and the prompt helped me navigate ;P

Of all the people Bucky’s ever met, none have been as unshakeably stubborn as Steve Rogers or Rebecca Barnes.

So, it shouldn’t truly surprise him, it shouldn’t surprise him one tiny bit, that a chance meeting in a crazy coincidence would mean she wouldn’t stop until she tracked him down again.

It all started because Eliot wanted to see something from when his father was a kid. Bucky told him he’d been born in Indiana and grown up in New York, he just neglected to ever mention the year. So, when summer came and Eliot had a long break from school and Bucky’s boss laughingly told him to “take the kid on a vacation, for cryin’ out loud,” Bucky decided it there would be enough of a crowd to get lost in to take Eliot to Coney Island. Eliot ran wild, dragging his dad to various rides and then to the games section, where Bucky spent hours teaching him tricks with darts, guns, and throwing, until Eliot had a zoo of giant stuffed creatures and an aim that would eventually rival his father. When Bucky told him they should head back to the hotel to store his loot, a ghost from Bucky’s past walked right up to him, stopped, and stared.

“ _Bucky_?” the woman asks, covering her mouth with her hand before reaching up to touch his face.

Bucky panics, grabbing Eliot’s shoulder and pulling him behind him, before shaking his head and urging his son out of the park instead.

“Daddy, who was that?” the boy squeaks, worried now as his father deems him too slow and picks him up like a little kid, nearly running people over in his hurry to get away.

“Someone I knew a very long time ago,” Bucky mumbles, concerned he’d been too lax. _They_ were going to find them, now. _They_ were going to take Eliot from him. _They_ were going to make him forget his baby. All because James hadn’t been careful enough. He knew he was scaring the young boy, but he couldn’t help himself, memories of a frozen, secret wasteland, of pain and children who’d lost their childhood ingrained too deeply to allow any other thought in, anything other that the urge to _protect._

He doesn’t stop until they are in their hotel room, and he is planning on how to get them out of there as discreetly as possible, checking every window and keeping an ear out for any threats while his son panics on the bed.

“Eliot, you listen to me, and you listen good. If I _ever_ tell you to run, you run, and no matter what, don’t look back. Don’t come looking for me, just get yourself somewhere safe.”

The little boy is crying now, but trying very hard to be brave, sobbing silently as he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, clutching one of the plushies tightly to his chest as he watches his father hurry about the room.

Bucky slows down a moment, kneeling in front of his son so he can wipe his tears away with his thumbs and meet his terrified eyes.

“And never, ever forget Daddy loves you, okay?”

Eliot sniffles, nodding, then reaches out for his father.

Bucky holds him tightly, rocking him back and forth and rubbing his back, sitting tensely on the bed as he listens for the distinctive sound of the gathering of a Hydra strike team.

Eventually, Eliot falls asleep. Bucky curls around him and holds his son close.

They’re at the train station waiting to go home when she finds them again.

“It _is_ you!” Bucky hears, a delicate hand wrapped an unfeeling arm stopping his instinct to flee.

Becca had been just 17 when Bucky last laid eyes on her. Barely growing out of the awkward stages of puberty and coming into her own. Now, the eyes that looked upon him were wiser, fiercer, heartbroken, and more determined than he could have dreamed.

“ _Becca_ ,” he whispers, a complicated slew of emotions rising in him. She watches the terror take hold of him, grabbing his hand before he had a chance to run.

“Come with me,” she begs him. Her eyes pled for him not to run, and he had always been hopeless when it came to his little sisters. “ _Please, Bucky._ ”

He does a visual sweep, unwilling to go back to Hydra, even for her.

Fortunately, she’d brought a car.

He loads Eliot (and all his prizes) in, sitting in the back seat while a young woman drove in the front. Becca sits next to him, gripping his hand as though he’d disappear again. She has a point.

They pull up to a brownstone and Bucky holds Eliot’s hand as they climb the stoop.

When Becca opens the door, Bucky is shocked still for the first time in many, many years.

“ _Ma._ ”


	2. Family Ties

After being drowned in hugs, tears, and kisses by the now elderly Winifred Barnes, the grateful Becca and her husband, a man Bucky once went to school with several lifetimes ago, and even his youngest sister Ruthie and her husband, Bucky introduces everyone to Eliot and the cycle starts again.

Becca introduces him to her son and two daughters, who have also given her five grandchildren between them. Ruthie’s daughter is expecting her fourth child soon. Apparently, Judith had moved out west when she married, but still visited on holidays.

Eliot is thrilled to be surrounded by so much family, and Bucky hasn’t let go of his mother’s hand since he sat down. Then, after everyone has been introduced and tearful smiles have been exchanged all around, Becca finally asks her brother why he looks nearly as young as when she last saw him and how she has multiple grandchildren, while he’s barely got a 6-year-old. Bucky looks at his sister, silently conversing as only siblings do. She asks her daughters to make Eliot and the other kids a snack in another room.

Then, Bucky squeezes Winifred’s old, fragile hand, the hands that worked so hard and so long and always seemed so strong to him and tells his family a tragic story about a prisoner of war, a team who was the best at what they did, a superhero who couldn’t fix everything, a conspiracy to shape the world, and a child who made a man out of a machine.

There isn’t a dry eye when he finally finishes, and his mother’s arms have now embraced him like they did when he was a child.

“Oh, my Jamie,” Winifred wails, squeezing him tightly. “What you’ve had to go through. And all alone.”

“I’m okay, now, Ma,” Bucky reassures her. “Me an’ Eliot, we’re gonna be fine. I promise.”

“I know you will, my son. You’ve always done better when you’ve had someone to watch over. First Steven, then the girls. And now my wonderful grandson.”

“He can’t know, Ma. Not all of it. I don’t want him to know.”

“Course not,” agrees Becca emphatically. “Besides putting him in danger, no child should have such a weight on their shoulders… Hey Buck- remember that time that we were all cousins and Ma was your grandmother and Eliot had nieces and nephews and aunts and relatives he couldn’t quite understand his relation to other than they were family?”

“He’s smart,” Bucky warns, smiling at his sister’s efforts, but with a hint of the hope he’d nearly lost over the last four decades.

“Course he is,” Ruthie agrees. “He’s a Barnes. Even if he never understands _how._ ”

“And you’re not alone anymore, Bucky.” Becca takes his hand and looks into his eyes, relieving him of a burden he’s carried solo for far too long. “You’re not alone.”


	3. Many Years Later

Every now and again, Eliot’s Aunt Becca would come visit. Sometimes, she’d bring his great Aunt Ruthie, who he thinks was a cousin on his mother’s side, and sometimes she’d bring his great grandmother Winnie, who Uncle Henry Spencer said was related to them through a mutual great uncle. After a few years, he stopped trying to get straight who was related to him how and just accepted that they were all family.

It was enough for him to be able to call up his nephew Jaime, laughing as he told him of a real estate developer’s plans for a park called Bibletopia, and plan another family trip to Coney Island.


End file.
